


Fandom Stocking 2018 - Stargate Atlantis

by Tarlan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: mcsheplets, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-10 22:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17434565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: A series of John/Rodney (McShep) ficlets written for Fandom Stocking 2018





	1. Prize Possession

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Clavally](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clavally/gifts), [DesireeArmfeldt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/gifts), [mekare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mekare/gifts), [runningondreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/runningondreams/gifts), [eriah211](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eriah211/gifts), [fredbassett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So many wanted to possess John Sheppard.  
> Written For Clavally
> 
> Also meets McSheplets 277: possess

So many people wanted to possess John Sheppard for one reason or another.

To some he was the man with a strong link to the Ancestors because of his supergene. They wanted to possess his DNA, wanting him to impregnate their women to bear children with the ATA gene. Of course it didn't hurt that John was so pretty too so more than a few village girls, courtesans, and priestesses happily threw themselves at him. He seemed oblivious to it for the most part.

Others wanted John's strong expression of the ATA gene to activate technology left behind by the Ancients. Sometimes it was for nefarious reasons but mostly it was leaders desperate to protect their world and their own people from the Wraith. Often they quickly realized they needed a certain scientist with knowledge of Ancient technology and a 'mouse gene' more than they needed John's supergene.

On some worlds they wanted John's knowledge: his security access codes and the dial up sequence to Atlantis, wanting to possess the Ancient city for themselves. The Genii almost succeeded in taking the city but Kolya hadn't counted on John being more than just a pretty face and a supergene carrier. He might act laconic and easy-going, even a little goofy, but once John went into full soldier mode he was... badass. He would do almost anything to protect the people under his command, even if that meant powering up the Stargate shield and killing over sixty Genii in the process. Kolya and Cowen were dead, and Ladon was in charge of the Genii now. Under Ladon's command the Genii were almost allies.

As he lay in bed with his nose pressed into John's neck, naked and sated after mind-blowing sex, Rodney smiled at the thought of all those who wanted to possess John. If they wanted John then they would have to tear him out of Rodney's cold, dead hands as John was now his, and Rodney didn't share.

END  
 


	2. Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rodney has a decision to make, but almost takes too long making up his mind.  
> Written for DesireeArmfeldt.
> 
> Also meets McSheplets 278: procrastination

He wasn't dragging his feet on purpose because it was a big decision, one that would affect his life from this day forward. It could change everything so he had to weigh up the pros and cons before giving an answer, and that took time. On the one hand being with John was the best thing that had ever happened to him, but what if taking that next step was taking a step too far? What if having it all should one day leave him with nothing, with him and John drifting apart until they were no longer best friends, and he became just a face across a room, someone John used to know?

Could he live with the loss, of seeing John every day with someone else laughing by his side, while he no longer enjoyed having that special closeness?

His door chimed and Rodney debated opening it, but it opened anyway to Atlantis's favorite son, revealing John standing on the threshold looking uncomfortable.

"Rodney?" His voice cracked a little.

Rodney felt his heart hammer in his chest, afraid he had taken too long and now he was going to lose everything anyway, before he even had a chance to see if it could work. It wasn't fair because all the reasons why he should pull away no longer held any sway over him. All he could see was a lifetime looking back to this moment filled with regrets for what could have been, unless he acted now.

"Yes!" he blurted, leaping to his feet and crossing the distance between them in several fast strides. "Yes," he said again, more determined and more certain it was the right decision when he saw the relief flood into John's eyes.

Nothing stayed the same forever. Maybe they would end up going their separate ways one day, but it was not going to be today.

And maybe change didn't have to be bad anyway. Maybe this thing between them would grow stronger with each day anticipating an even better tomorrow, and that was a chance Rodney was willing to take.

END  
 


	3. Opposites Attract

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rodney compares himself with John.  
> Written for Mekare.
> 
> Also meets McSheplets 279: attract

They say opposites attract and Rodney couldn't think of any two people more opposite than him and John. He was a scientist, John a soldier. Rodney had an admittedly very slightly receding hairline - he gritted his teeth and smoothed his hair, wishing John would tell him if he still had hair when he was older or if he ended up as bald as a coot like his dad - while John had crazy hair that Rodney was convinced was sentient by the way it seemed to match John's moods - floppy when sad or tired, all springy and spiky when he was alert or acting happy and goofy. John liked Superman, probably for the x-ray vision as much as for the flying part while Rodney preferred Batman, a scientist like himself, a dark knight. John had this thing for dry Turkey sandwiches while Rodney dreamed of a juicy steak... and John liked _Back to the Future_.

How many times had they seen that movie now? And every time he cringed at the terrible science while John guffawed and declared it the best movie ever, wanting Rodney to go and invent a time machine. Rodney figured he had already done enough damage to the time stream by working out a way to bring John home from 48 thousand years into the future. Except that had been a different Rodney McKay though, strangely, Rodney could imagine allowing a puzzle of that magnitude to sweep him up for decades, especially if John was the prize at the end.

They had so many other traits opposite to each other - he was loud and abrasive, John was taciturn and easy-going; he could barely run a single lap of the Central Tower without needing an oxygen mask while John could almost keep up with Ronon, or at least for the first five laps.

So here they were, opposites, and yet here they were in bed together, attracted to each other, so maybe there was something in the saying after all.

END  
 


	4. Debt of Gratitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rodney owes another version of himself a debt of gratitude.  
> Written for Runningondreams
> 
> Also meets McSheplets 280: mystery

From childhood Rodney was enthralled by the mysteries of the universe, wanting to know the how and the why of everything around him. Much to his parents' dismay he pulled apart appliances to see how they worked. In the early days his parents would be left with a pile of useless parts and the need to go out and replace whatever item Rodney had disassembled. As the years past he managed to put the appliance back together, and then he started to improve on them, making them more efficient. He moved from one mystery to the next - the toaster, the hairdryer, the television, until he was building his own computer. Then came the day government agents knocked at their door and they discovered Rodney had built a prototype nuclear reactor in their basement for his school's science fair project. All it needed was the radioactive material, and it was his online search for that material that put him onto the government's radar.

He had never lost this desire to know how everything worked, wanting to solve every mystery the universe presented to him, so when John disappeared after stepping through the Stargate he was determined to figure out what had happened. He knew it wasn't the same as when Teal'c had got caught in the Stargate buffer.

According to John, in another timeline Rodney spent his life working on that one mystery until he solved it, building an avatar of himself and loading it onto the Atlantis database to be activated 48 thousand years into the future. Rodney knew his alternative self would have tried to account for every variable, wanting to believe the city would still be standing but not wanting to take the chance on it still being populated. Whatever he had done had worked. Twelve days after John went missing the Stargate activated unannounced and John stepped through looking slightly older than Rodney recalled but still beautiful in Rodney's eyes. 

Apparently John had ended up in stasis for almost a thousand years waiting for the right series of astronomical events to bring him back close enough to the time of his disappearance.

It had been only a matter of hours for John but those twelve days had seemed like a lifetime to Rodney. He wondered how he could have borne the true weight of a lifetime without his best friend, living with the regrets for not seeing if they could have been more than friends. The other Rodney had given his life to solving the mystery of John's disappearance, then sacrificed his whole time line once he had solved that mystery. Rodney knew he owed that version of himself a debt of gratitude, and what better way to repay him than by casually reaching over as he and John sat together on the pier later that evening, and kissing him.

END  
 


	5. Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rodney had always wondered what John's black wristband concealed.  
> Written for: eriah211
> 
> Also meets McSheplets 281: letter

Rodney wasn't sure what he would find underneath the black wristband, although like most people he was sure it would be a tattoo foolishly attained after a night of drunken debauchery and regretted ever since. Despite the many times they had found themselves in weird situations off-world, even stripped almost naked once or twice, he had still yet to see what lay beneath the ever present wristband. It was a mystery that was slowly driving him insane so when he awoke that first time in John's bed, lazily wrapped around his best friend who was now also his boyfriend, Rodney could not resist taking a peak.

"Huh!" he exclaimed as he examined the wrist in question, because there was nothing there.

No tattoo, no weird birthmark or other blemish, no strange scars... except when he tilted John's wrist the light momentarily caught the paler flesh of the faintest scar. Rodney angled John's wrist to catch more of the light sneaking through a chink in the weird, silvery drapes covering John's windows. It was a scar in the rough shape of a single letter, a capital M. Various words beginning with M jumped into his mind: Mom, Margaret - John's mother's name, or maybe something for John's love for speed - Momentum. It was certainly dorky enough for John, or maybe John once had a cat, or more likely a dog and this was its initial, a memorial etched upon his skin.

Belatedly he realized John was awake and allowing him to inspect the scar without embarrassment or irritation, carefully watching Rodney's reaction instead.

"Okay, fine. I give in. What does it stand for?"

John shrugged with one shoulder. "Nothing... everything. Whatever I want, whenever I want."

Rodney blinked rapidly, "That doesn't make sense. You must have had something in mind when you got this."

"I fell through a glass door as a kid. Maybe it's M for 'Miracle I didn't get scarred worse'."

"Then why hide it?"

John looked a little embarrassed and vulnerable, eyes ducking away. "Because it means nothing and everything. Whatever I want, whenever I want." His voice lowered almost a whisper. "Mom, when she died. Mad, when I realized I couldn't live up to my dad's expectations. Mistake, when I married Nancy."

"And now?" Rodney asked quietly.

John reached out and drew Rodney in for a single, searing kiss, and when he eventually drew back he whispered, "Mine."

END  
 


	6. Rulebreaking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rodney wants John to break a few rules for him.  
> Written for: fredbassett
> 
> Also meets McSheplets 282: rulebreaker

"Rules are meant to be broken," Rodney replied airily, waving a hand as if to brush away the rules in question, and ordinarily John might have agreed.

John wasn't against breaking a few rules, especially if they got in the way of saving someone's life, but despite his slightly rebellious streak he was actually pretty good at staying within the rules and regulations laid down by the military. He liked those rules, liked having the line drawn so he knew the consequences of crossing that line. Small things like his hair just a tad longer than regulation, or not wearing full uniform by going sock-free, these were tiny pokes at the regulations, especially as women were allowed to wear their hair far longer.

The bigger regulations mattered.

The Fraternization regulations were there to protect both parties and yes, technically Rodney was his equal in rank on Atlantis, but off-world John was in charge. He had to make the tough decisions, ordering someone under his command into a difficult, life-threatening situation, and fully aware they might be killed in action. His rebellious act was to never order anyone to do anything he was not prepared to do if he was in their position, and to move heaven and earth to bring them home safely if possible. He had once ordered Rodney to start up the stardrive of a dilapidated sister city to Atlantis, aware it might shake to pieces and come crashing down on top of Rodney, killing him, but the choice had been between one man and a whole village of innocent people about to be annihilated by a madman; a man they had totally misread and had given the ATA gene.

"I can't," John stated softly.

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Fine. It's time I stood down from off-world missions anyway, in case my brilliance is lost to the sharp end of some village idiot's arrow."

"You want to break up the team?"

Rodney rolled his eyes even harder. "The team hasn't had an off-world mission together in over a year. Ronon and Teyla are running their own teams now."

John went to protest but then realized Rodney was right. Between Atlantis being stuck on Earth for over five months and then re-settling into Pegasus with a larger military and scientific presence neither of them had found the time or opportunity to organize an off-world mission together. John had not noticed the time passing because they had been too busy running their own 'departments', something he never expected to find so challenging and had usually delegated to Lorne.

"Why don't I ever see it coming?" John protested quietly to himself, glaring at Rodney's snort of derision.

"You are such a Flyboy, Sheppard." He smiled crookedly at John. "So? Do you want to break a few rules?"

As he stepped into Rodney's personal space John smiled. "What rules?" he asked because he was no longer crossing any lines by kissing Rodney.

END  
 


End file.
